I sat down with Wilbur Salazar, who runs the brand new Faith Deposited site and YouTube channel, and had a chat about the philosophy of science and religion. Well, I say chat, but perhaps logorrheic rant is more apt. Or maybe ill-considered tongue-tied chaotic extended outburst. My excuse is that it’s cold in my shack, and all that arm-waving is what keeps me warm. The lip flapping keeps you warm.
My argument is that science limits itself, and badly, by ignoring the First Cause, the ultimate reason for the existence of anything, and the cause of the Way Things Are.
Wilbur’s description:
In this episode of Faith Deposited, Wilbur sits down with statistician, philosopher, and former Cornell professor William Briggs for a wide-ranging conversation on truth, science, and the limits of modern skepticism. Briggs, author of Everything You Believe Is Wrong and Uncertainty, explains why we don’t need to rush to belief on every headline — and why intellectual humility is essential in a world saturated with panic and overconfidence.
The video is at YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
(This was recorded before the latest adventure in the Land of Eternal Wars.)
Now I know most prefer videos. That’s why I make them myself, such as they are, but if you’re one of the few, like me, who prefer the written word, because you haven’t the patience to watch or listen, here is a place that does transcripts of YouTube videos. I haven’t tried it, but if you do and have success, let us know.
You can also view the transcript on YouTube, but I think it only works in a side window.
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This is like a 14 square puzzle where you keep moving the logical inconsistency around, but never eliminating it. Both “there is an infinite stack of earlier causes, and thus no first cause, because there is no biggest number in an infinity” and “the first cause is here, and you are not allowed to ask how it appeared” are inconsistent with what we know. There is no machine in a physics lab that gives us experimental evidence about what any earlier causes are. Thus we shouldn’t hold any beliefs about that answer.
Now Anonymous, you can’t think this is an original objection, not after 2,000 years.
Aristotle’s, and later others, show why God is a necessary being, that he is existence itself, that nothing can exist without him, and that he is simple.
See Ed’s book for this in great detail.
God is, and He has revealed Himself to us. We can believe Him or not believe Him by exercising our free will gift from Him. So, do choose to believe His revelation of Himself to us. If your choice is to not believe Him , then you eliminate your own self from eternal life with Him. A forever bad decision. Instead, receive His Son Jesus of Nazareth, as ypur Lord and Saviour, and live forever with God in Heaven. He is your Father, and He loves you completely. His Holy Spirit will train you up in the way you are to go.
P.S. Love reading rather than videos.
God bless, C-Marie
C-Marie, I’m always puzzled by expressions like ‘choose to believe’. I don’t think I ever choose to believe something. I may have a belief, then choose (or not) to act on it.
Briggs, in the opening image to this article, it seems you have mistakenly used a photo of a youthful Harold Peary, aka Throckmorton P Gildersleeve.